Today's Politician : Marketeer or Social Reformer

Some say,
'Raajneeti means- Bas Raaj Karo, koi Neeti nahi'

Well, Netas have a fool-proof Neeti.

Neeti - NOT on how to better the lives of citizens in their constituency, but on, how to keep selling their political ambitions to the voters.

Marketing has been seeping through Political mansions since India attained freedom. In fact even before that during the freedom struggle,  politicians had carved out their niche positions, with Jinna opting to focus his politics on Muslim diaspora and Nehru on the rest.
Today, to keep winning elections, politicians majorly concentrate on the 2 generic (Michael Porter's) strategies, notably :
-Mass marketing to a broad segment of population (which our national parties such as Congress and BJP do)
-Focused marketing to a narrow segment of population (which our Regional Parties such as DMK,NCP, Shivsena etc. do)

And in pursuing this, they keep discovering new baits, to trap their Target Market Segment (voters), each time the election comes. Just the way companies offer Diwali-discounts to customers, these politicians distribute television sets to poor, cycles to school children before Elections.

When companies dole out discounts to their customers, they start price wars. Quality takes a back seat. Same has been the fate of Politics too, it is increasingly becoming more of a commodity. As the 5 year term approaches to an end, politicians draw plans on how to draw voters near them. Just the way, marketeers devise strategies on how to gain market share, politicians too, resort to all gimmicks. to capture maximum market share.

Marketing at play in the History of Indian Politics:

Peeping back into the history,Congress was in monopoly, that led the nation to freedom. Just then , Muslim League parted ways by creating a new market 'Pakistan', the same way as, companies such as Hindustan Lever create new markets to sell their soaps & detergents.

Congress was the tent-pole (as we say in marketing) of Indian Politics, under which varieties of values,culture and ideologies thrived and it encompassed the Rich & the Poor, the Industrialists & the Trade union socialists.
But then each product has a Life cycle, as it travels across Development, Growth, Maturity & Decline stages. And post that the process of Segmentation begins....

Congress too, had come of age. Indira Gandhi made the 1st major split in the Congress. During the days of  Emergency, Jan Sangh came into picture and later got transformed into BJP. Later on, Congress witnessed further fragmentation in the form of Sharad Pawar's NCP and Didi's Trinamool Congress. At BJP, too there was a split , with Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Jan Shakti. And parallely, regional segmentation brought about Chandra Babu Naidu's TDP, Lalu's RJD, Jaya Lalitha's AIADMK, Mulayam's SP, Mayawati's BSP and many more..

Too many competitors within a limited market space.... drives the players towards Differentiation.

In Strategy lessons, its said that 'when the Concentration-Ratio (the sum total of Markets shares of top significant competitors) in the market reduces the monopoly diminishes.
The best strategy then is to merge with key players so that each party in the merger benefits due to a consolidated chunk of the market. The way Petrol and Automobile complement each other, imagine what if, all the Petroleum companies start venturing into Automobile manufacturing and vice versa. There would be a utter chaos and a total loss, just what's happening in the Indian Aviation sector now..

This is the age of alliances and Joint-ventures as resources are scarce and competition is harsh.Politics too is treading the similar path. National political parties form coalition with regional parties and run the government through a Common Minumum Programme.

So, Social development has taken a back seat at the moment..what lays ahead on the road is for all of us to see... Who knows tomorrow there would be a separate Brand Modi .. Whatever the case maybe, the marketing gimmicks will keep on going.

Aqua-nomy : Visualising 'Water' through Strategic Lens

Newton in his 3rd law states that - 'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction'.

We apply this law in every facet of human advancement but when it comes to nature we just seem to forget the essence of it.
Take the instance of 'water usage'. Water is the most important, most under-priced, most undervalued and easily accessible, of all the natural resources we have on planet 'Earth'. Since it is available in plenty, we have been unlimitedly exploiting it. So much so that, in our part of the world we seem to pay the due reverence to the 'Jal Devta' and 'Godess Ganga' only during Worships.

We are using water at a rate higher than its rate of replenishment. Our Industries don't hesitate to draw water from dams recklessly. Our farmers don't refrain from switching on the gen-set because power to them is absolutely free, diesel to them comes subsidized and there is no tax on drawing water from underground. Our urban citizens too don't really pay the real price of water. But this 'marginal gain' at one side is offset by the similar or in fact higher 'marginal losses' at the other side. The oil subsidy bill is one such example, that comprise costs accruing due to sheer extravagant usage of water and in turn ramps up the oil consumption.

Kids in our schools are taught that water is a renewable resource. But water is seemingly, getting finite. It's sources such as polar caps and glaciers are melting day by day. The excessive, unwarranted and free usage of water is making us pay that cost of water some-where else.

So, the question is that where then does the common man  pay the cost of water?  Well we pay the price of water on :

Vegetables and Fruits Prices 
Courtesy poor monsoon, the water is procured from underground water table using pumps. Consequently, due to declining water table, farmers need to dig deeper and water is pumped from deep inside earth. This increases energy consumption per hectare for the farmers and hence increases the cost to the farmer which in turn is passed on to the end consumer when the consumer purchases food grains, vegetables and fruits etc...

Electricity Costs
Due to rising demand of water and receding water tables , water is transported from far-off places to the water starved localities. This long distance transportaion through pipelines soaks up lot of energy , which could have been used for some better purposes. Hence causing the electricity shortage .

Crude Oil Prices 
As we need more and more crops to feed our burgeoning population , we need more energy to draw water for our agriculture, consequently we need more oil . In a way, agriculture is converting oil into food. Urban consumers too rely on oil for water. Most cities are transporting water from far off sources. Electric generator sets, backed by diesel ones, pump water to the end consumers at a price that is rising with each hike in energy tariffs.
Water that trickles from our tap every morning has a high correlation with the crude oil docking at port.

Government Subsidies 
Due to erratic monsoon , the farm output decreases. This leads to lower contribution of agriculture to the GDP, consequently pulling down the overall GDP. Which pushes government to take some measures to instill confidence in the market, thereby it spends more of its tax collected in providing relief to farmers rather than investing in infrastructure and other employment generating opportunities.

Reduced Exports
Agriculture in India contributes over 10% to the national exports. Over drawing of water and unpredictable monsoon leads to imbalance in the water supply needed for agriculture and impacts the farm produce. Thus paucity of water impacts the agriculture production, and hence the exports, which ultimately impacts our Balance of payment.


What can be done therefore, to increase the SUPPLY of water?
Our industries suck up more than 50% of water from dams. So they need to lead the show, by consuming water economically. Our Government can help by rectifying leaking pipelines, using treated waste water for agriculture and industry, more fuel-efficient gen-sets. Our farmers can do their bit, by responsibly drawing water for their land and our urban population can assist by resorting to civilized usage of tap water.

Need of the hour is that we build as many Desalination (a technology which converts sea water into drinking water) Plants we can, along the coastal belts, that we are blessed with. More projects such as that in Minjur (Tamilnadu) or the upcoming one at Dahej (Gujarat), needs to be created on war level, so that more sweet water can be made available to industrial use.Middle east countries are mitigating their water crisis by investing in desalination. Today, Saudi Arabia uses 85% of water from the desalinated plants for the purpose of  irrigation.

On legislature front, requisite Water Policies should be rolled out of the parliament , which guides the consumers on its usage and price etc..

After all Water is Life. And we are playing with it......  Aren't we?

Can IT reduce our Fiscal Deficit?

The Fisc-balance

This piece of thought refers to 'What is Fiscal Sense' (Economic Times,Oct 01).

Last week, Kelkar Commitee on Fiscal Consolidation said that 'The Indian Economy is presently poised on the edge of a Fiscal Precipice'.

It also prescribed few medicines to the said illness - slew of measures, government must execute, to improve the GDP growth and better the health, of the economy.
Now, as we know, the metrices of GDP, are tracked by a 'tiny' equation:
Y=C+I+G+X-M
(where , Y: Nation's GDP, C: Consumption Expenditure, I: Investment Expenditure, G: Government Expenditure, X: Exports, M : Imports.)
At the outset, it's fair to acknowledge --  that we can balance the weakening GDP by - reducing subsidies, increasing Government expenditures (in infrastructure and other investments), streamlining tax policies (in order to collect taxes from wider population), motivating consumers to spend more, improving our Forex reserves (by ramping up Exports) and so on...But where emphasis is required most, is on -- "execution".

After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Information technology can play a very crucial role here, in improving our execution capabilities. Government is not able to reach to wider sections of population to collect taxes. Only around 2% of folks pay taxes. Whatever little money this may amount to, Government uses portion of these taxes for nation building. But then, not all of money reaches the other end of the supply chain. Lots of public money gets wasted during the national production cycle. Historically, indian Public Distribution System (PDS) has been performing more like the Power Transmission companies. Just the way much of the Electric power generated, gets lost in transmission, the same way much of the public money is siphoned of during the distribution process.

We need to plug these leakages, to reduce Fiscal Deficit.

There is this urgent need, to implement Electronic Payments for all the Government Transactions. This will reduce the cash usage in the economy. Which in turn will enhance transparency & accountability and reduce corruption. It would be possible for the Government to do a hands on analysis of its Fiscal balance by predicting and collecting revenues on one hand and managing expenditures on the other hand. Also it would help the government improve its PDS process and in running its flagship schemes such as MGNREGA effectively.

'Aadhar' can be an important vehicle, through which these government transactions can be routed.